


It might get to be a habit

by randomalia (spilinski)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, harold/books, john/happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 14:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12632520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: Harold hadn’t even heard him approaching. John had found him seven rows back, half in shadow, his curious face tilted into a book that was cloth-bound and blue, its pages the soft colour of age, of quality.‘Find anything good?’ John had murmured as he drew near.(The library, dumb jokes, a small kiss.)





	It might get to be a habit

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to make this a 5 times fic, but the rest of it hasn't shown up. Maybe one day, maybe not.

It happened by accident, the first time. Harold hadn’t been at his desk but his bag was there, and his coat was hanging on the rack and John had sat there a solid half hour before he allowed himself to get up and look for him. He knew sometimes Harold went down to the stacks, where long, towering shelves of books made the basement feel like a particularly informative labyrinth, and he knew, too, that sometimes Harold would get distracted down there.

But it was tough on Harold’s leg, having to navigate all those stairs. And the stacks were dim and quiet, so far down that John would never know if anything happened.

So he’d gone looking. 

Just to check. Just to offer to carry the pile of books upstairs, the pile that Harold was probably accumulating because books were one thing Harold couldn’t resist.

Harold hadn’t even heard him approaching. John had found him seven rows back, half in shadow, his curious face tilted into a book that was cloth-bound and blue, its pages the soft colour of age, of quality.

‘Find anything good?’ John had murmured as he drew near.

'Oh, Mr Reese,’ Harold said, startling just a little. He was getting used to John appearing at his side. 'Not really – well, actually its a book I remember finding in this library before, a long time ago. I’d not thought of it once from then 'til now, but here it is. Funny how the mind stores things away.’

'What’s it about?’ John asked. He wouldn’t comment on what the mind did and did not store. Too much for comfort, too little for use, he thought.

Harold had paused, and turned an embarrassed glance over at John. 'Poetry, actually,’ he said. 'I dabbled for about a week in college. I’d met a very interesting English major and – well. I thought knowing something about poetry might help me strike up a conversation.’

'What happened?’

'Nothing happened. This may or…may _not_ surprise you, Mr Reese, but as a young man I wasn’t particularly adept at making friends, let alone impressing anybody.’

John leaned against the shelves and gave Harold his mildest look. 'You impress me plenty.’

Harold looked at him. 'Yes, well. I wasn’t able to fund anyone’s personal arsenal back then.’

'It doesn’t hurt,’ John acknowledged. 'So Grace was your first girlfriend?’

'She was the one that mattered.’ Harold closed the blue book gently and slid it back onto the shelf.

'Cryptic,’ John remarked. 'You should work in intelligence.’

'Thank you, Mr Reese; I shall keep that in mind. Speaking of work, I suppose we should return to it. The machine does not wait for personal reminiscences.’ He turned to pick up a small, neat pile of books sitting on the ground, but John saw and beat him to it. The books fit snugly in John’s hands and he looked at the title on top. 

' _Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, 1955_ ,’ he read, and raised a questioning eyebrow at Harold.

Harold raised his back. 'I enjoy science fiction,’ he said.

John repressed a smile. It wouldn’t do to start laughing aloud at Harold’s jokes. 'Sure you do,’ he said evenly. 'That must be where you get your ideas from.’

'What ideas?’

'Oh, you know. Building an artificial intelligence that fights crime and keeps you safe.’

'You fight crime and keep me safe, Mr Reese. The machine detects patterns of behaviour.’

John didn’t really know what to say to that, or to the perfect assurance in Harold’s tone. They were standing close together, and it was quiet and dark, deep in the building they worked in together every day and John had held the books to his chest and leaned down a little, and he’d done it almost before he’d even had the thought.

That was what he remembered later – moving before it really occurred to him to move, wanting before it occurred to him to want, and so in the next moment his mouth was against Harold’s mouth, and Harold had frozen but the place where his mouth touched against John’s was warm on John’s lips.

'Sorry,’ John said as soon as he drew back.

Harold had stared at him with wide eyes, looking as stunned as John had ever seen him.

'I’ll – take these upstairs,’ John said, and he had. He’d turned on his heel and walked steadily all the way up the stairs to set the pile carefully on the table, and then he walked all the way out of the library and onto the cold, wet street of a New York afternoon.

He had nowhere to go, not really, so he’d done his best to disappear into the city, watched on every corner by the machine, accompanied everywhere by a tight, breathless feeling of panic.

The next morning he’d gotten up and showered and dressed and bought one coffee and one green tea and he’d walked back to the library to find Harold sitting at his computers.

'Good morning, Mr Reese,’ Harold said, looking up. There was something in his gaze that John didn’t know how to describe. 'We have a new number.’

'That’s good news,’ John said, and drank his coffee, and they got back to work.

That was the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> “I won’t kiss you. It might get to be a habit and I can’t get rid of habits.”
> 
> ― F. Scott Fitzgerald


End file.
